Fathoming The New Human Civilization

Wikipedia defines technology as "a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment." Strictly speaking then, technology has been present in human beings as far back as they, as a species, have been able to use their immediate environment to serve their purposes.

Examples of the earliest forms of technology can be wooden branches used as crude extensions of the arm or maybe even the skin and fur of animals to serve as heat regulators for our ancestors. All across human history, we see the progress of the genus homo from bipedal ape to modern man. Truly, the contrast between the Stone Age and the Modern Age is confounding. But the Modern Age without the internet seems unfathomable to us now. And it's only been around twenty years. How can man do so much in relatively so little time?

Of course now, we think nothing of this simply because we understand the world in the present. We immerse ourselves everyday with the technology at our disposal and while it advances in our midst, we hardly really notice; at least up until retrospecting.

We apply many labels to the umbrella term Modern Age, in an attempt to put structure in the way our civilization moves ahead. One of the most popular is the title Information Age because it describes most precisely the fact that information is so readily available for anyone with an internet connection.

Note the emphasis: anyone with an internet connection. While on the surface, the statement speaks about inter-connectivity and predicts and proves the mechanics of greater globalization, it also implies discrimination of those without an internet connection. This statement speaks volumes about how our civilization functions in the present.

Ironically, the Information Age is already a couple of years behind us in that it fails to properly describe what is now happening to our civilization. True, this new age (if I may be so bold as to claim its existence) is built heavily, fundamentally upon the Information Age. But that is the way with all technology and advances.

What we are experiencing right now is what can be most accurately described as an age of reintegration. And what is oddest about it is that it is no longer so much built upon physical technologies such as the nanorevolution and "environmentally-aware" revolutions going on around us. Rather, it is hinged upon the development of ideas and the sharing of values over a network that encompasses, Internet willing, the entire world.

Thus, your photoshopped pictures can be transmitted around the globe via internet-powered devices and people Stumbling onto it, finding it interesting, will give it a thumbs up consequently fueling the activity all over again. Thus, and in the same manner, personal movie reviews will reach total strangers from the opposite end of the globe and it will help them decide whether to watch the movie or not. Thus, blog posts about anything at all, upon being deemed worthy of the initial attention, will spread and influence individual minds, and eventually actions.

New global cultures have formed entirely out of the internet solely through this process. The internet is now a means of connecting ourselves; not just with cold, hard information and statements of facts, but with and through subjective values. Whether the value itself is accepted by the community is of course of no certainty, but the phenomenon of communication and expression as a real phenomenon is undeniable.

Indeed, this heightened level of expression itself is gradually proving the presence of a unified body of people, linked by the internet. Word of mouth for example, the oldest means of affecting influence, has finally caught up with physical technology. This means that the inherent value of a good idea, no matter how small, has once again been put at a premium simply because it can spread to everyone like a viral meme. Once substantially prolific, the humble idea can easily become the new standard. And there lies its power.

While this is widespread knowledge and more or less obvious, the implications, I think, are not. Potentially, we can again apply all the "old rules and values of the community" to our situation--albeit in a more complicated manner due to all the changes that occurred between then and now--because there is a similar Oneness now in our context as there was then. Creation and creativity turns the great overmind that is the world wide web. In this new Age of Reintegration we have, truly, the makings of a global human Community.

To test this theory (because it is, in spite of all my hubris presenting it, just a theory) I'll share with you a practical application of it. But not now because this is tiring. =)

[I apologize if I appear to jump from one premise to another. It was a spur of the moment thing that urged me to write my thoughts, just so they're written. Don't forget to check out my other posts.]